A handful of yards past the roundabout, number 22 right there, and a man just a few steps further along. He was leaning against the railings, smoking a cigarette, cap pulled down low, and he’d turned his head to watch Joel approach.

Joel’s keys were in his overcoat pocket. He closed his hand round them, slotting them between his fingers, with a tiny anticipatory pulse of nausea at the idea of punching someone with them. Breaking his fingers, or the metal tearing them, anything that might damage his remaining hand—

Calm down, he told himself. He kept his pace steady, and the man kept his gaze steady too, watching Joel and making no effort to hide it. Joel pretended not to see. He climbed the steps with his spine clamped tight, his skin prickling, poised to whip round at the slightest sound of movement.

None came. Nothing at all. He unlocked the front door with a shaky hand, which was absurd. He was panicking over nothing, over a man who was loitering in the drizzle for his own reasons and would probably have watched any passer-by—

He glanced down, and the man looked directly up at him, meeting his eyes. He kept looking, without speech or movement, until Joel closed the door.

He did not sleep well that night.

***

A FEW DAYS LATER JOEL was still feeling fairly wretched about all of it.

For one thing, he’d been unreasonable and he knew it. Aaron’s back-and-forthing, his cowardice even, was a perfectly good reason to give him short shrift, and if Joel had said as much in a sensible way, he’d have nothing to feel bad about. As it was, he’d flown off the handle when Aaron had declined sex, and that was shitty, even if it wasn’t what he’d actually meant. He ought to apologise, if only for that part.

He wasn’t going to, obviously, certainly not in the absence of any apology from Aaron for all the pissing about. He’d do much better to forget the whole thing, since his stupid hopes and nonsensical feelings had worked him up into a state where he’d not only embarrassed himself making unwanted demands, but talked himself into being terrified of a few footsteps and a loiterer.

That was Aaron’s fault too, of course, him and his vague allusions to risks and dangers and dodgy colleagues. Not Joel’s problem, and he was going to stay well away. Any further telegrams—not that there would be any, nor was he hoping for one—were going straight into the waste-paper basket.